Part seven and final - "You Ain't Seen Nothin Yet"

Our first DDD caseworker down in Arizona once told me that children with Autism are angels.  And I don’t mean sweet, as in “precious little angels.”  I mean crystal colored robes, feathery white wings, and bright, golden colored halos - the ones who embody the purest, most perfect of spirits, the ones who escorted Satan to Hell, the ones who will forever be highest and most valuable servants of God himself.  You know.  Angels.

This woman was the single mother of two children with Autism of her own, and she was convinced that the reason for her son’s constant attempts to jump out the second story window of her house was that he thought he could fly.  She was also convinced that this was the reason for his daily escapes to run naked down the middle of the street, the reason for his need to sleep under a weighted blanket at night due to his fear of floating away unintentionally, and the reason for his trying to convince his teacher at school to allow him to build a human sized catapult for his fifth grade science project.

“He a angel, my perfect, beautiful boy,” she said, “He remember what it is to fly.  He know he no belong in dis world.”

This woman was originally from Puerto Rico and spoke with such a thick accent that I couldn’t understand what she was saying at all if we were on the phone, but I could understand about half of what she was saying if she was directly in front of my face.  And, one afternoon, she went on and on about these angels and about how they're unable to conform, physically and/or psychologically, to the dysfunction on our planet – the toxins, the weird shit that we do to our food, social dysfunction of any kind, etc.

“Dey sensitive to our selfish ways, it make dem sick.  Dey here to show us what we doing wrong,” she said.

She used one of her other clients as an example (without breaking anonymity of course, but she worked in a city of five million people so you can only imagine the kinds of things that she saw on a daily basis).  She told me that the dad had gone out drinking and hadn’t been home in days, that the mom was home but crazy with not knowing what to do, and that their house was filthy beyond anything that she had ever seen before.  And she had just found their Autistic child in his/her bedroom actually scratching his/her own skin off right before coming over to my house.

“De child act out de energy in dat home,” she said, actually tearing up.

Then she looked over at my son Cale.  He was standing in front of the open kitchen pantry taking one piece of cereal out of the box, spinning around one time, then eating the cereal piece, taking another piece of cereal out of the box, spinning around one time, then eating the cereal piece, etc.  I couldn’t help rolling my eyes at what Cale was doing, but she said, “Dat what Autism child should look like.”

“Well, he self harms sometimes too,” I informed her.

“Dey all self harm sometimes,” she responded, “An dey all tantruming.  Dey pure being in a impure world.  But you doing good job.  Dis very good home for Autism child.  It beautiful here.  I love.”

I looked around my house – at the dirty dishes on the table we were sitting at, at the piles of unfolded laundry on a floor that hadn’t been swept in days, and at the filthy little fly that had gotten into the house early that morning and was buzzing happily around her head while she smiled at my sunny yellow walls and the paintings I made back when I used to paint.  I remember that moment quite clearly actually, because it was the first time it ever occurred to me how much plain, old-fashioned perception (what I chose to focus my attention on) can affect my experience of life with Autism.

She told me about a book she once read, and told me that I should read it too.  I can’t remember the name of it though because it had only been written in Spanish.  But this book is apparently all about these angels and about their current purpose here on our planet - if I understood her correctly that is.  This was about three years ago, and I never did actually try to get the book.  In fact, until recently, I had forgotten about all of this.

To be perfectly honest with you, I remember leaving that conversation feeling rather sorry for her.  At the time, I found it sad that this was the kind of thing she had to tell herself in order to get through the trauma of living, and working, with Autism.  You see, I don’t even have open my mouth in order to be condescending.  It just takes place naturally right inside of my own head.  I mean, who the hell did I think I was anyway, feeling sorry for her for believing in angels?  She was one of happiest people I’d ever met, in spite of living with a son who kept trying to jump out second story windows, and in spite of the things that she saw while working as a state caseworker.  And I’ve come to find out that she is far from the only person to believe in such things.

My healer introduced me to the concepts of “indigo children” and “crystal children” about whom other books have been written.  They are, if I understand it correctly, advanced spiritual beings born on earth to change the energy frequency of the planet, which apparently took a nearly irreversible negative turn sometime during world war two.  These beings change the energy frequency of the planet simply by being here, they don’t actually have to do anything in particular in order for it to work.  Their personal energy is apparently so pure, so Godly, that it attracts like energy to the planet even while they’re scratching their own skin off, or eating cereal and spinning in circles.    

Why are they called indigo and crystal children, and how would one know about their energy frequencies?  It has something to do with the colors of their auras (dark blue, which is the color of healing, and crystal, golden, or clear, which is the color of Christ energy, if you’re a Christian, or consciousness itself, if you’re not).  I don’t understand it any better than that, I’m afraid.  

Another idea is that these children are being born because the human race is evolving.  I do find it interesting that one out of 88 children is being born with Autism today (and don’t even start on me about better diagnostic tools - my non-verbal five and a half year old couldn’t sit through even one of these diagnostic tools, so they weren’t able to use any of them on him at all).

Apparently, there’s some evidence that children today are being born with strands of DNA activated that have never been activated in humans before, although I’m not aware of any hard scientific proof of this.  And I don’t know what I think of any of this stuff to be honest with you, nor do I have any opinions for or against any of it.  I simply like to gather information for the pure, glorious pleasure of information gathering.  I find it rather fascinating that these kinds of ideas are out there at all.  Anyway, this DNA thing is where the genius thing that my healer keeps harassing me with, comes into play.  

If I understand it correctly, indigo children are children with high-functioning Autism (although, the literature actually states that indigo children tend to be diagnosed primarily with ADHD in general).  There’s no concrete definition of an indigo child, but I've probably found about a hundred lists of common characteristics, the most prevalent being that they're unable to conform to dysfunction – namely shallow social graces, or authority for authority’s sake. 

The one physical characteristic is that they tend to have large, striking eyes.  They’re advanced beings (either angels or from the future or from other planets or dimensions, try not to roll your eyes), so they’re smarter (spiritually) than we are and they know it.  They’re in tune with what’s important to them, and tend to ignore what's not.  They can see right through anything that isn't real, and can spot a drop of dishonesty like a dog senses fear.  They tend to be rather spirited, and sometimes mean, but they have an innate innocence that really can’t be explained.  They’re here to heal the world and other people with their presence, and to plow the way for the crystal children. 

Crystal children are the ones being diagnosed with Autism.  Apparently, they don’t learn to talk right away (or at all) because they don’t need to.  This is because they read minds (try not to roll your eyes, I know it’s hard, I’ve been trying not to roll mine about this for some time now).

To transmit information in this way is faster and more accurate than talking is, because it includes not only words but also every emotion and physical sensation involved in the communication.  Apparently, it takes crystal children awhile to figure out that other people don’t necessarily read minds like they do, especially when parents are responsive to communication attempts that aren’t verbal.  If you think back to what it’s like having a baby, parents know what the baby needs even though the baby can’t yet say it.  Well, apparently, this is why crystal children tend to think they’re parents can read minds too.  It’s because they sort of can.  It is believed that all humans will eventually be communicating exclusively in this way.   

An annoyingly eery example – My daughter, Isabel, touched a spot on our healer’s forehead and asked, “How did you get this bump on your head?”

I looked, and didn’t see a bump.  But my healer touched the spot on her forehead and said, “Ohhh, that’s right.  I do have a bump right there.”

I tried not to roll my eyes.

Then my healer said to Isabel, “Here, I’ll show you how I got it.  Close your eyes.”

They both closed their eyes, so I went ahead and let mine roll right on into the back of my head.

Isabel kept her eyes closed for a few seconds (remember, Isabel’s “sensory issues” include activities that involve balance and movement), and then she opened them again just before my healer opened hers.  Then the healer opened her eyes and asked Isabel, “Did you see it?”

Isabel said, “Yeah, I saw you surfing.”

And my healer said, “That’s right, I was surfing.  Then I crashed right into the beach and hit my head.”

Isabel had opened her eyes before she saw the healer crash, thank God.  And I found myself thinking, “Don’t show her images of you surfing and crashing!  Do you want to scare her to death?”

But isn’t it kind of funny that my first thought wasn’t, “She SAW you surfing?  How in the hell did she SEE you surfing?”

I probably have about a dozen examples like this about my kids.  I have no doubt that Isabel and Cale read minds to some extent, and Isabel in particular knows things all the time before they actually happen.  But I also think that we all do, or can, to some extent, so I’m still not convinced that this is something inherently special.

I’m sure I’m not doing the concepts of indigo and crystal children justice here.  There’s a lot more information on all of this if you’re interested in looking it up.  I should warn you though that there are plenty of rationalists vomiting their Nietzsche backgrounds onto all of these lovely ideas too – sentences like, “The parents of “Indigo and Crystal children” are just new age hippies who want to view their childrens’ disabilities as something special instead of something bad.” 

And my response to that is, so what?

I go back and forth actually.  When my heart is suppressed and my mind is solid and very much in control, I tend want to tell the new age hippies to take their “no proof” ideas and stuff them into their bongs.  But when my mind is sad and hurt and defeated, my heart takes over and finds it incredibly comforting that, “There’s something very wrong with your child,” can be replaced with, “There’s something very, very right with your child.”

I tend to be a bit of an existentialist actually, in that I think the things in life mean whatever we make them mean.  I mean, what does it actually matter whether or not something is true?  Anytime I’ve ever heard an argument about whether or not something is true (who gets to be right and who has to be wrong), it has always been the silliest argument I’ve ever heard.  This is what I hear,

“The walls are a soft, sunny yellow.”

“No, there are dirty dishes on the table!”

“No, the walls are a soft, sunny yellow!”

“No, there are dirty dishes on the table!”

It’s an argument you hear people have all the freakin’ time about all kinds of different things if you eavesdrop the way that I do.  But the only thing that’s actually true is that people are looking at the same things with different perceptions, and hurting each other in the process of their arguing. 

The way I see it, I’m the only one who has to live in my own skin.  Therefore, I get to believe whatever makes me happy.  Because, in the end, none of it is true and all of it is true, or, truth is really whatever we decide it is.  And I believe that the things that are in front of me are in front of me for a reason, otherwise they wouldn’t be there.  This frees me up to believe that it’s all true, if for no other reason than because it’s more fun than believing that none of it is.

The only issue I really have with the “angel” and/or “indigo/crystal children” ideas are that they still make my kids different than other kids.  And they are different, there’s no denying that.  But we all are, aren’t we?  It’s the one common denominator amongst all humans, that we’re all different from one another.  Funny enough, it’s the only thing that makes us all the same.  All children are here for some magnificent spiritual purpose.  And of course we’re evolving.  We always have been, and we always will be.  And every human being on the entire planet is a crucial part of that.

The one thing that has stuck for me in learning about all of this stuff is that I can use the Autism in my life to help me become the kind of person that I’ve always wanted to be.  It’s funny how when the outside dreams start to die (the perfect family, the 2.4 normal children, the white picket fence, etc.), the inside dreams (who I'd really like to be in relationship to the people, places, and things in my life) can then become the dominant motivators in my life.

Whether or not it’s true that the purpose of the Autism in my life is to make me better person, is irrelevant.  If I use it for that purpose, then I’ll get to get better.  I mean, if you think about it, you can really use anything in life for that purpose.  And it helps me a lot for the Autism to have a purpose, even it is nothing more than one that I’ve created. 

I started writing a book some time ago, but I stopped when I got to the part where I could no longer avoid talking about my brother.  It was a block like I’d never known before, because in order to write out my own story I have to expose my brother in his entirety.  My brother has never officially been diagnosed with high functioning Autism.  He’s thirty six years old now, and being raised next to him has colored every single perception I’ve ever had in my life.  But I couldn’t write about it because I couldn’t risk pissing him off.

I talked to him about this these new aged hippie ideas (the indigo, crystal child ideas) a couple of weeks ago, and these ideas held his attention for nearly three hours straight (and nothing that I’ve ever seen has ever held his attention for that long before).  And I said to him, “Do you think it’s possible that you’re here to bring out the worst in others so that they have to see, and possibly heal, those parts of themselves?”

You’d think this was a rather offensive question, but he actually laughed.  And I don’t mean that he giggled.  I mean that he laughed from the very core of his belly (a very unusual thing for my brother to do).  This question touched a truth in him somehow.

“You didn’t bring out the worst in everyone.  Well, almost everyone.  But in some people, people at that old church camp we used to go to for example, you brought out the best,” I told him. 

“There’s this lady at work,” he said, “and she has to put her glasses right in the center of the napkins.  And I can’t help myself, I really can’t help it, I swear.  I just… sort of… push the glass slightly off center.  And she looks at me, picks up the glass, and sets it back in the center of the napkin.  And as soon as she’s not looking, I move it off center again.”

I sighed a sigh from the bottoms of my toes, because that right there is an example of why our childhood was the way that it was.

“I’m writing a book,” I said.

“Oh, wow,” he said.

“And you’re in it.  And I mean everything is in it – the bullying, the gangs that tried to blow up our house, all the things that mom thinks gave you post traumatic stress, are going to be in the book.  I’ve decided to go ahead and write it.  But when I’m done, I’ll read it to you (because he can’t read past the third grade level), and if you don’t like it then I won’t try to get it published,” I said.

And he said, “Oh, I think you should just write it and get it published if you can.  I don’t mind what anyone thinks.”

My block was removed that day, and it made me think back on the prayer that I said for Cale, “Dear God, I’d like to see you cure anything in Cale that can be cured, and I promise that I’ll love him no matter what.”  And this is where it has led me so far - what if it’s not really about getting people with Autism to conform to the ways of this world?  What if it’s really about healing my own perceptions, looking at the yellow walls instead of the dirty dishes, of my own life?  It’s dawned on me that maybe one of the things that needs healing in my son’s life is actually me. 

I'm back on writing my book again and this time with my brother’s permission.  But, even though I'm very happy about this, I’m still not making any promises about actually producing a book because every time I set myself up like this I seem to get blocked again.  But, oh well.  I still get a lot out and processed this way.  And thanks for listening.

Part Six - You Ain't Seen Nothin Yet

"You can call this web God, the Tao, the Great Spirit, the Infinite Mystery, Mother or Father, but it can only be known as love."

Joan Borysenko

Do you ever find yourself beside yourself?  When your mind has taken over your body so completely that the rest of you is left on the outside looking in?  For most of my life, and especially before I had my kids, I thought that I was my mind.  You know what I mean?  I didn’t realize that listening to the the stuff going on inside of mind (especially in moments of intense fear and/or threatened ego) was optional, or that there was even more to me than that.  I mean, I knew with my mind that I was more than my mind.  I just hadn’t become aware of it with the rest of me yet, if that makes any sense.  Anyway, it took me years to become aware of the rest of me, and, more importantly, to become able to be that instead when my mind has taken over.  Eckhart Tolle, in his book A New Earth, calls this “watching.”  

I found myself walking down the street in the dark, in the midst of a temper tantrum that could’ve rivaled that of any two year old.  So I prayed, because that’s what I’ve been taught to do under such circumstances.  And I think my prayer deteriorated into something like this, “Dear God.  I cannot wait to get up to you in heaven, because I cannot wait to see the look on your face when I finally get my hands around your neck.  Amen.”

Strangely, this didn’t relieve my anger.

Did you know that 80% of marriages of Autism parents end in divorce?  It was common knowledge until recently, when somebody wrote an article claiming that this statistic is actually untrue.  Of course, the article didn’t specify whether those studied were parents of kids with Autism as in Isabel, or Autism as in Cale, which are two distinctly different beasts.  Instead, it grouped all Autism parents into one category.  So now, whenever you google Autism parents and divorce rates, all you see is this one article “debunking the 80% myth.”  And as I walked, I thought, “Yeah?  Well, fuck whoever wrote that article.”   

“I guess this is the fate of the stay at home,” my mind continued on its bloody rampage, “a job that’s number of hours on duty rivals only those of slave laborers in third world countries, and the details of which are open to constant scrutiny by He Who Makes The Money, only to end up with no keys, no vehicle, no house, no stuff, nothing at all to my name, because everything’s in his name, because he’s the one who makes the money.  Oh, how did I end up like this?”

It’s exhausting, isn’t it?  I know.  And I have to live with my mind all the time.

“If we got divorced, then I wouldn’t have to work my ass off for free anywhere ever again!  I could update my teaching license and get a teaching job, and then I could buy my very own little house.  And we could trade off with the kids!  You know?  Three days with Cale and then three with the other two, then switch, or we could do every other week maybe.  Oohhh, can you imagine anything more heavenly three whole days in a row, every single week, with no screaming?”   

Let me stop for a moment here and give you a little insight into my thinking, because it might help clarify things a bit.  We sometimes go through periods of time where I can foresee the future possibility of having to give up custody of my son.  You see, if a family doesn’t have the money to place a child in a group home, but they also cannot keep the child in their home, their only option is to relinquish custody of the child to the state.  What that means is that the parents forgo any right to any say in where their child goes, or how their child is treated when he/she gets there.  It’s a thought that is terrifying beyond any kind of reason. 

We have family members who have been through this with their nonverbal son with Autism.  They gave up custody of their child when he was around nine years old, because they could no longer protect themselves from him.  This child in his twenties now, is still mostly nonverbal (he never got therapy, because therapy for Autism is actually a relatively new phenomenon), and still lives in a group home.  And his parents visit him often.

My mother in law brought this up in conversation last summer (as these particular family members are in her immediate family).  She knew this child when he was very little, and she knows that Cale is very much like him.  So she, too, foresees this as a future possibility for Cale.  And she tries to comfort Shane and me by telling us that it really was the best decision for everyone.

There are only two other options.  The first is to keep Cale in the home, with no respite care or anything here in Montana, and hope that he’ll never seriously injure one of our other two children.  I mean, even though I provide mostly constant supervision, I do occasionally have to take an incredibly selfish moment to pee.  This can be dangerous, because I am personally responsible for the safety of all of my children.  And if this is ever jeopardized, then the state has the right to come in and seize custody of all of them.

Now, I’ve told caseworkers left and right that as Cale grows bigger and bigger, and continues to not get better and not get better, and continues to become more and more aggressive as a direct result of his inability to talk (and he’s still not learning how to talk), that there’s eventually going to come a time when I will no longer be responsible for the safety of the people in my house.  But they always just look at me like they don’t know what to do with that.  And if they don’t know what to do with it, then who does?  Because it’s something I’m going to need to know.

I can handle Cale trashing my house.  He’s always creating the wreckage of a brand new tantrum while I’m still busy cleaning up the wreckage of the last.  But it’s the aggression that scares me.  He's not always aggressive.  But he's aggressive just often enough that we'll no longer take him anywhere where there might be other children.  And he's aggressive just often enough that we've taught our other children to run away fast when Cale attacks.

It's not that big of a deal now because Cale's only five and a half, but once he reaches the size of his older brother (who’s only eight - that's only a little over two years away), I’m going to start showing up places with black eyes.  And so are my other two children.  And if he ever manages to succeed in pushing one of my other two children down the stairs while I’m peeing, or manages to succeed in shattering one of our picture windows with a hard plastic toy (he adores the sound of breaking glass), then there may be serious injuries.

I'm afraid it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when.  And I’m still setting aside all of the moral implications of this (like the fact that my other two children shouldn’t have to live like that), and focusing only on what it would mean for Cale.  I’m still stuck on whether or not I could survive ever having to give him up.  But if someone in our house is ever seriously injured by Cale, will I even have a choice?          

The second option is for Shane and me to separate, and for one of us to have Cale while the other has the other two children, and then switch off.  And sometimes the fear that surrounds the idea of giving Cale to the state, triggers distorted thinking about my marriage.  Then, especially under the lash of a fantastic excuse, like a bruised ego, this thinking gets really exaggerated.           

My own powerlessness was about to overcome me entirely as I walked down the street, when all of a sudden it occurred to me that I didn’t have to go back home.  Ever, I mean.  I was free.  Completely and irrevocably free!  No more baking.  No more cleaning up broken glass and poop and vomit.  No more listening to the sometimes constant screaming!  No more keeping my son from hitting and pushing his siblings!  No more getting hit in the face!  And, most of all, no future decisions that I won’t be able to survive!  I was free!!  It was physically exhilarating, almost to the point where I thought I might actually start levitating off of the ground.

I realized that there was enough money in our checking account right then to get me just about anywhere in the world that I wanted to go.  I thought of Paris immediately.  But really, how would I get along in Paris by myself?  I don’t speak French.  Shane’s the one who speaks French.  “Jesus,” I thought, “Can I do nothing without this man?”

I reached a corner where I could turn right and walk towards a place where I knew some friends of mine were meeting, friends who know Shane well, friends who know me well, friends who would surely use their words to try and sooth me into going back home.  Therefore, I turned left.

“Maybe England,” I thought, “I could get along just fine all by myself in England.  But it is awfully far away, and I do want to be able to see my children periodically.  Maybe Portland.  Portland is much closer and almost just as green.  I used to love Portland, but it’s been an awfully long time since I’ve been there.”

I thought about some old friends of mine who used to live in Portland, and I tried to imagine them looking middle aged.  That made me smile.  Then I thought that I should maybe go and see them.  I mean, hadn’t I been meaning to do that for about a hundred years now?  What better way to use my new found freedom than to go visiting?  But then I thought about the fact that we’re all grown up now, with spouses and kids and gloriously busy lives.

I thought about their lives, lives that I was considering asking these people to set aside for a moment in order to spend some time with me.  I imagined boys that used to dance naked around bon fires, sitting at desks in front of computers in button down shirts, anxious to get home to the smell of pot roast and to the comfort of chubby baby arms.  And I imagined girls that used to drink beer in the mountains under the moonlight, throwing pot roast into crock pots before rushing off to work, so that the smell would be filling the air for everyone later in the evening.

It stopped me dead in my tracks to be honest with you, and made me think hard about the things that really matter.  In fact, it was almost like waking up all of a sudden, because as I realized that I couldn't ask them to set aside their lives, I was genuinely startled to discover that I was considering setting aside my own life.  I mean, how could I actually be considering setting aside my own life?  It never ceases to amaze me just how far away from who I am my mind is capable of taking me when it's afraid. 

I thought about Shane again, and about the fact that I can’t imagine being away from him, even in the midst of something as glorious as three days every week of peace and quiet.  You see, I love Shane first.  And I love my children second.  Maybe that makes me some sort of terrible mother, but it’s true.  And it’s always been true.  I just needed to remember it, that’s all.  I needed to be using my new found freedom to go home.

“Well, shit,” I thought.  The levity was gone, and I was back on the ground firmly with both feet.  I called a friend of mine who came and picked me up.  She took me out for a cup of coffee, screwed my head back on straight, and then took me home to swallow my pride, just in time for me to tuck my children into bed.

I sometimes feel like that zebra in the kid’s movie Madagascar.  You know the one?  He’s lives in a zoo, but he wants to live in the wild?  So they put a T.V. in front of a treadmill in his cage for him, with pictures of the wild on it.  And he runs and runs and runs on the treadmill towards the T.V.

That’s how I’ve started to feel about anything that might help my son – this therapy and that therapy, this doctor and that doctor, this medication and that medication, this herb and that herb, this theory and that theory, this diet and that diet, and now my healer’s ideas, the list goes on and on, because there’s always something else to spend your time and money and energy trying – and that the next thing, whatever it is, is really just the next picture on the T.V.  And it’s not just the fact that my son never gets better that I resent (and I don't consider being a little calmer to be better, I consider talking and being able to function in the world to be better).  It’s also the running on the treadmill that I resent. 

Shane always asks me, “So, why do you do it then?”

And the answer is simple.  Because what if the next picture on the T.V. is the real thing this time?  Yet, I don’t chase it because the picture had never been real before?  And what if, as a direct result of my not chasing the real thing, my son ends up institutionalized some day?  

I’ve inventoried the hell out of my fear of Cale ending up in a group home.  And I’ve taken, and am continuing to take, a look at all of the areas of my life that this fear lands on.  I know that when I get pissed at Shane for not helping me enough (even in the midst of him helping me plenty), it’s because I’m afraid of Cale ending up in a group home.  And when I get pissed at my other kids for not being a good example for Cale of how to eat healthy food, it’s because I’m afraid of Cale ending up in a group home.  And when I get pissed at Cale for refusing to eat the food he should be eating, or for escaping out the front door, or for not being able to go to the park (or anywhere else where there might be other kids) because he might hurt others, or for continuing to not talk, it’s because I’m afraid of him ending up in a group home. 

When I get pissed that the therapists aren’t doing it right, or the schools aren’t doing it right, or the doctors and healers aren’t doing it right, it’s because I’m afraid of Cale ending up in a group home.  And when I try to sabotage my marriage, it’s because I’m afraid of Cale ending up in a group home.  Am I making my point?  It all stems from the same fear.

It’s one thing to know about a fear, but it’s quite another to do something about it.  It means turning to God again (Remember him?  The one I intend to strangle when I see him?).  Well, I don’t like turning to God when I’m pissed at him.  Apparently, I’d rather just be pissed at everyone instead.  Apparently, I’d rather tell my healer exactly where she can shove her Basmati rice.  And apparently, I’d rather sabotage my marriage.  It’s all been very interesting to “watch” so far, but it really has come time to do something about it.

I went to a retreat a couple of months ago, and a woman there gave us a meditation suggestion.  The meditation suggestion was this – go to the place inside of you that hurts (rather than imagining flowers and sunshine and Jesus or whatever the hell people generally imagine) and then stay there, embrace it, and love it.

Well, I couldn’t embrace it and love it.  In fact, during the retreat itself, it was all I could do to stay there for ten seconds.  Actually, I couldn't even show up to meditate the first morning.  It was the second morning that I was able to stay there for ten seconds before I drifted off into the flowers and sunshine and strangling Jesus again.  But I’ve been practicing doing this meditation ever since.

I go to my future image of Cale.  He’s fifty something years old and a ward of the state, living in an institution with gray carpeting, white walls, and horrible florescent lighting.  And he’s sitting on his bed wondering where his parents are.

His parents are dead, his mother from lung cancer because she never could once and for all quit smoking.  And his brother and sister live far away.  They have spouses and kids and gloriously busy lives, so they just don’t get around to see him very often.  Therefore, nobody loves him.  I mean, the people in the institution bring him food that he won’t eat.  And they change his diaper, because he never has learned how to poop in the damn toilet.  So they take care of him, but they don’t talk to him because he doesn’t talk back.  And they don’t love him.  And he doesn’t understand why his mom and dad aren’t there.  He doesn’t understand why nobody loves him.

I’ve been practicing staying there for a little longer and a little longer and a little longer.  And, just recently, I was able to stay there long enough to actually see what would happen next.  You see, when my son gets stressed out, he likes to pour water.  In fact, we’ve often joked that this is Cale’s form of meditation.  It calms him like nothing else does.  And he knows how to communicate that he wants to pour water.  He pulls your arm off, trying to pull you over to the bathtub.  And he puts your hand on the faucet and grabs his cup.

Any caregiver in any institution will learn very quickly that everyone’s lives will be a lot easier if they let Cale take baths a lot.  So I saw Cale get off of his bed and pull a caregiver over to his bathtub.  I saw him grab a cup, get into the warm water, and start pouring.  Then I got closer and closer to the water pouring out of the cup, until I actually disappeared into it.  And guess what was in the water?

Shit.  This might be difficult to explain.  I know that I’ve talked before about an old church camp that I used to go to, and that it’s made people want to vomit that I’m so sentimental about it.  Well, it's where I found God as a little girl and, to this day, it gives me a visual representation of a power that doesn’t hold still, and makes it hold still.  I know that I really can't make that make sense.  All I know is that, for me, God holds still there.

What I saw was that lake, and those trees, and those familiar faces.  There were a thousand memories of that old camp in the pouring water – the sounds of people talking, the sounds of those silly songs (kumbaya My Lord, kumbaya - what does kumbaya even mean anyway?  And what could one tin soldier riding off of a bloody battlefield possibly have to do with Jesus?), guitars playing, the smell of the trees and the lake and the campfires, the sights of kids with their arms around each other, or kids without their arms around each other because they were mad at each other, teenage angst, late night girl talks in the cabin, saran wrapping toilet seats, people eating mulch (don’t ask).

A friend, who later became a doctor I think, ripping a cigarette out of the hand of his little brother, smoking cigarettes in all of the places we weren't supposed to be smoking cigarettes, blue eyes looking at me when I was sad, my brother actually laughing out loud in the midst of a bunch of his own friends, group hugs, and laughter.  Lots and lots of laughter, God we had fun there.  And then there was that lake again, that mystical magnificent lake that’s so gorgeous that even God himself is entranced by it, and is made to hold still there forever.  Then I came back out of the pouring water again and saw my son smiling at his cup.  And I could finally see why.

I told Shane the second I saw him, “God's in the water!  He’s in the pouring water!  See?  I have to do all of this stuff – pray, meditate, reach out to others, etc. – to stay close to God.  And our parents and grandparents have to go to church to stay close to God.  Regular people have to do all of this stuff in order to stay close to God.  But Cale’s already there.  He was born there.  He’s never going to be alone.  And he’s never going to be unloved.” 

Shane just looked at me funny, “That’s nice sweetie.”

Poor guy.  He has to live with my mind too.

Cale's doing better (meaning that he's a little calmer these days) by the way.  We're officially half way through the process of taking him off of his psychiatric medication.  Each time they lower the dose he has a few days of constant tantruming, but then he levels out again.  Then he's good for two weeks and then they lower it again.  Then he tantrums, levels out, etc.  He should be off it entirely mid May. 

He's eating nothing but hamburger and raisins, but these are both on the "good for him" list.  And we're taking him to an ND now as suggested by my healer (my healer will keep seeing him too, but she wants everything monitored by a doctor, which is practical I guess).  The new doctor wants him to eat vegetables.  God, when will they ever quit harassing me with the vegetables?  I plan to tell her that if she wants him to eat vegetables then she'll have to supplement, because I'm not going to make him puke anymore.

And just today, Cale hasn't pushed his sister one time.